LOCALadk Magazine

Opposite page, left: Photo of the author and David Kanietakeron Fadden sampling a wooden dugout canoe in the Six Nations Iro- quois Cultural Center for carbon-14 dating Opposite page, right: Ray Fadden with a pot from Silver Lake rock shelter LOCALadk 39 and their influence on water quality in Lake Champlain. My role was to explain the science of how people are connected to the land, life forms, and waters of the region. Dave then painted my technical descriptions of microbes and molecules into the background of "Wa- ter is Life," in which an Indigenous woman cups the wa- tery gifts of a watershed in her hands. The vegetation around her was a mosaic of traditional iconog- raphy, faces, chemical elements, microscopic organisms, and flights of fantasy — a diverse and colorful blend much like the land and peo- ples of the Adirondacks, themselves. Dave's vi- sual representation of the science infused the project with an emotion- al power of the sort that we have tried to bring to the book, as well. When John passed, Dave became the third generation of his family to run the Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Cen- ter, and our relationship continued to evolve. Our inspiration for writing a book together eventual- ly came in the form of a podcast. In it, the guest and host not only denied the existence of Indige- nous Adirondack history but also mocked anyone who claimed otherwise. After more than a cen- tury of such nonsense in books, articles, social media, and local folk- lore, we knew it was time to challenge the myth of absence more thoroughly in print. Thus began several years of background research for The First Adirondackers that not only demonstrated the great depth and complexity of the human presence here but also revealed another connection between our families that we had been unaware of before. While working on the book, I learned from Saint Re- gis Mohawk tribal director Tsiorasa Barreiro that my own interests in Indigenous history were linked to Ray Fadden's work through the Akwesasne Mohawk Coun- selor Organization he inspired during the 1940s. The organization trained Haudenosaunee youth to serve as cultural representatives for Boy Scout troops and summer camps nationwide. Tsiorasa's grandfather, Wil- liam Cook, was among the trainees. Cook strongly in- fluenced the progressive Farm and Wilderness camps in Vermont, where he was known as "Wakio" or "Flying Cloud." There he left a legacy of respect for Indigenous cultures before losing his life in a fighter jet training accident during the Korean War. In 1970, I attend- ed Cook's namesake camp, Flying Cloud, as a 13-year-old, after which I spent many sum- mers sharing what I had learned there at my own family's youth camp in Maine. In particular, I often recited tradition- al Haudenosaunee sto- ries from a book whose author's name I didn't recognize until a stu- dent pointed it out on my shelf during my first year of teaching at Paul Smith's College in 1987. "I see you have Ray Fadden's book of leg- ends here," Paul Hetzler said while visiting my of- fice. "No, that one's by a fellow named... um…," I replied, mispronouncing it as usual. Paul smiled. "That's Ray. And his Mohawk name sounds more like 'd eh - han - eh - D O H - lons' when you speak it." I am humbled to dis- cover late in life that I, too, am part of the lega- cies of Tehanetorens and Wakio, and I'm aston- ished at the serendipity that led me to make my home this near to those remarkable men who inspired me so long ago. With that awareness, I am all the more thrilled to share this two-row journey with David Kanietakeron Fadden in honor of our families, and of the countless other Adirondackers who lived here long before us. We hope you enjoy it, too. t

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